Other Activities

UCSC aerial photo of monterey bay and campus
Seminar room with students seated and two instructors

Other Career Development Activities

Additional career and professional development opportunities that would not necessarily be classified as Seminars or Workshops are listed here. These include community outreach activities; volunteer activities; non-scientific skill development opportunities; and more.

Do you have a relevant upcoming event or conference that would benefit IRACDA, CIRM, or T32 trainees?

Contact the IBSC and let us know

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Event Feedback Form
Outdoor poster presentations with people

Upcoming Activities

July 14th – July 18th, 2024 – Cancer Molecular Therapeutics Research Association Conference 2024
Granlibakken Lake Tahoe Resort

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Where

Granlibakken Lake Tahoe Resort, CA

When

Sunday, July 14th – Thursday, July 18th, 2024

Conference Information

Speaker Photo

Annual CMTRA Conference

May 28th – June 2nd, 2024 – 29th Annual Meeting of the RNA Society
Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC); Edinburgh, Scotland

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Where

Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC)

When

Tuesday, May 28th – Sunday, June 2nd, 2024

Conference Information

Speaker Photo

Welcome to Scotland For RNA 2024

Wednesday, March 29th, 2024 – Santa Cruz Works Launchpad: Annual Student Business Idea Pitch Competition
Boardwalk Cocoanut Grove

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Where

Boardwalk’s Cocoanut Grove
400 Beach Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

When

Wednesday, May 29th, 2024 at 12:00 PM – 7:00PM

Agenda Overview

  • 1-4pm: Student business plan pitches (open to the public)
  • 4-5pm: employer setup
  • 5-7pm: Job Fair + Networking (open to the public)

Pitch Contest

From 12-4pm, students will compete in a business plan competition for $40,000 in cash prizes. The pitch competition portion of the event typically includes 12 student teams who each have five minutes each to deliver their pitches to a judge panel comprised of UCSC alumni and mentors.

Pitch categories for 2024 include: Social Impact, Mainstreet, Technology, Community Impact, People’s Choice, Climate Action, and Runner Ups. If you are a student and would like to compete, apply by no later than April 26.

Job Fair

From 5-7pm, job seekers will have the opportunity to interact with 20+ local companies offering 200+ jobs and internships ranging from engineering to marketing, project management, sales, customer support, and more.

This event allows students, job seekers, professionals, and employees of all experiences and backgrounds the opportunity to show off their resumes, find career opportunities, and make new connections. There is no charge for job seekers to attend the job fair. The job fair is open to the public (you do not need to be a student or pitch contest participant to participate). But all attendees must register in advance!

Last year’s employers included Joby Aviation, PayStand, Looker / Google, Cabrillo College, Santa Cruz Bicycles, Ambient Photonics, Cruz Foam, Digital NEST, Bay Federal Credit Union, Unnatural Products, Santa Cruz Seaside Company, Zero Motorcycles, and more.

Conference Information

Speaker Photo

Santa Cruz Launchpad 2024

UCSC campus entrance sign with tree in background

Past Activities

Wednesday, March 13th, 2024 – Santa Cruz Works: Remarkable AI
Boardwalk Cocoanut Grove

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Where

Boardwalk’s Cocoanut Grove
400 Beach Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

When

Wednesday, March 13th, 2024 at 6:00 PM – 8:30PM

Agenda

  • “Think Remarkable” book signing with world-renowned speaker, entrepreneur, and New York Times and Wall Street Journal best selling author, Guy Kawasaki
  • Tabling: demos from Midjourney, Farm-ng, Newsworthy.ai, Horizon3 AI, Insperity, Foclarity, Santa Cruz Ventures, Vectara, Stakabl, and more
  • Levity: Networking, appetizers (included), beverage (cash bar), and live music from Cruz Control
  • Horizon3.AI: Horizon3.AI is the creator of the NodeZero™ platform which empowers organizations to continuously find, fix, and verify exploitable attack surfaces. Horizon3.ai was selected to Fortune Magazine’s 2023 Fortune Cyber 60 list
  • Midjourney: Midjourney is an AI tool that transforms your written descriptions into unique works of art
  • Foclarity: Foclarity provides essential tools to ensure teams are focused and aligned on top-level objectives, fostering sustained growth, innovation, and operational excellence
  • Farm-ng: Farm-ng is a robotics company focusing on developing and providing agricultural robots for various farming tasks
  • Guy Kawasaki, the legendary marketing evangelist and author, will ignite the stage with his signature blend of wit, wisdom, and actionable advice on harnessing AI for remarkable results
  • Sam Schillace is a deputy CTO in the Office of the CTO at Microsoft. He has been a startup entrepreneur for 35 years, and owns the very first Google Doc because he sold his company Writely to Google. At Microsoft, he’s been leading a small team that has been experimenting with AI and the future of applications and software for the past year
  • Jim Whitehead, Professor of Computational Media at the Baskin School of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Claire Delaunay is currently the Chief Technology Officer at Farm-NG and has 20 years of experience in Robotics and Autonomous vehicles. She was the former VP of NVIDIA

Conference Information

Speaker Photo

Remarkable AI

Tuesday, March 12th, 2024 – Next Wave of Faculty in Genomics Symposium
Baskin Engineering BE2-180

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Where

BE2-180

When

Tuesday, March 12th, 2024, at 11:45 AM – 1:15 PM

Speakers

Speaker Photo

Dr. Kimberley Billingsley – National Institute of Health

Speaker Photo

Dr. Jason Liwei Guo – Stanford University

Speaker Photo

Dr. Diana D. Moreno-Santillán – UC Berkeley

Speaker Photo

Dr. Elena Irene Zavala – UC Berkeley

2023 PBSE Annual Research Conference

Thursday, September 21, 2023

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Registration:

Open NOW through September 1. Faculty should register all members of their group who will attend. Lab Members–double check with your PI so you know that they have registered you. The registration fee will be ~$130/person (final amount to be determined post-event).

Registration Form:

Link to Google Form

Lightning Talks:

Lightning talks can be given by grads, postdocs, faculty, or researchers, but we’re especially interested in folks for whom a talk would be a good career development opportunity, such as junior specialists and 3rd years presenting their quals proposal. Indicate your presenter(s) on your registration form.

Posters:

We would like to have at least one poster per lab. Indicate your presenter(s) on your lab’s registration form.

Keynote:

This year’s keynote speaker is Dr. Joseph DeRisi (https://derisilab.ucsf.edu/). Dr. Joseph DeRisi is Co-President of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF. He employs an interdisciplinary approach combining genomics, bioinformatics, biochemistry, and bioengineering to study parasitic and viral infectious diseases in a wide range of organisms, for the purpose of discovering and studying novel or unrecognized biothreats. Early work in his lab contributed to the identification of the SARS coronavirus in 2003.

Grad student organizers needed:

There are opportunities for students/trainees to volunteer and help us organize the event in exchange for a reduced registration fee! If you are interested, please sign up on the RSVP form or email Grace at mkistler@ucsc.edu.

Questions?:

Should you have any questions about this year’s conference or registration, please do not hesitate to ask your grad advisor, PBSE track leaders, or the PBSE Conference Planning Committee.

2023 PBSE Research Conference Planning Committee:
  • Jordan Ward and Grace Kistler-Fair (MCD)
  • Michael Patnode (METX)
  • Scott Lokey (CB3)
  • Andy Yeh (BME)

UCSC Specialized Metabolite Community (UCSC SMComm)

Thursday, August 3, 2023

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When: 3:30 pm (social) | 4:00 (talk)

Where: PSB 240

The August edition of the UCSC Specialized Metabolite Community (UCSC SMComm) will be held Thursday, August 3, 2023. This will be a special Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Undergraduate Research edition of SMComm with two exciting tag-team talks from Prof. Katharine Watts’ lab! We’ll hear about bond formation of amino acids to a complex polyketide substrate, and efforts to adapt and streamline Gibson assembly for NRPS proteins!

SMComm will be held in PSB 240 at 4:00 pm and we will have informal ‘social/snacks/beverages’ mingling time sponsored by the MacMillan lab starting at 3:30 pm (either in PSB 240 or outside PSB depending on your COVID comfort levels). Please find the promo flyer attached, hope to see you there on Thursday!

UCSC SMComm flyer

UPSA Postdoc Symposium

Tuesday, June 6 | 10:00am to 7:00pm

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Annual Postdoc Symposium 2023

2023 Postdoc Symposium

UCLA Student-led California Neurotechnology Conference

Saturday, April 29th

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Conference Website

https://neurotechconference.webflow.io/

Registration

Student Registration for California Neurotechnology Conference

California Neurotechnology Conference flyer

Mentoring: Gradpath Coordinator

Graduate or Undergraduate | 10 Hours/quarter commitment

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Seeking GradPath Coordinator(s)

WiSE runs a mentoring program, GradPath, that pairs graduate student mentors with undergrads who are thinking about applying to grad school.

We are seeking one or two coordinators (graduate student or undergraduate) to organize the program. Training will be provided by the existing coordinators, Andrew (EEB Post-Doc) and Renee (Biological Anthro Grad).

We welcome all experience levels, and are excited to have a new member of our team. The anticipated time commitment is 10 hours per quarter. Responsibilities include pairing mentors with mentees, answering questions, and sending quarterly surveys for recruitment and experience. This is a great opportunity to develop science outreach skills and looks wonderful on a resume/CV.

If interested, please email ucscmentoring@gmail.com

Conference: UC Drug Discovery Consortium Research Symposium

March 24th, 2023

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The 5th Annual DDC Symposium will host presentations from luminaries in drug discovery and development across the UC campuses as well as members from industry. This full-day is hosted by UC Santa Cruz at its beautiful redwood campus.

Please register in advance to attend and/or present. If you have any questions, please contact Scott Lokey for more information on the program.

Flyer for the 2023 University of California Drug Discovery Consortium Research Symposium

Volunteering: Farmer’s Market – WiSe Outreach Booth

Multiple Dates

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WiSE will be hosting an outreach booth at the Santa Cruz Westside Farmer’s Market on February 25th, March 25th, April 29th, and May 20th.

Shifts for 9 – 10:30 and 10:30 – 12 available.

No experience required.

If interested, email Hannah Lusk (our Farmer’s Market Coordinator) at hlusk@ucsc.edu